 |
      |
 |
 |
||
 |
|
 |
||
 |
|
 |
||
|
For more information on these science news and feature story tips, please contact the public information officer at the end of each item at (703) 292-8070. Editor: Bill Noxon Contents of this News Tip:
ENGINEERS, ECONOMISTS JOIN TO EXPLORE IMPACT OF ELECTRICITY DEREGULATIONAcross the nation, electric power providers, regulators and consumers are about to enter the "Brave New World" of deregulation. Under a multidisciplinary grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF)’s Divisions of Electrical and Communications Systems (ECS) and Social, Behavioral, and Economic Research (SBER), Cornell University engineers and economists are working together to explore the possible effects of competitive markets for electricity generation. Investigator Richard Schuler, professor of economics and civil and environmental engineering, says, "The electricity market is unique -- the epitome of a 'just in-time' delivery system. You cannot build inventory, and if you do not find the right customer for your product at the right time and price, the potential consequences are tremendous for both the provider and the consumers." Using a simulated electricity grid based on the Northeast and laboratory experiments in market behavior, investigators have developed new web-based tools to allow them to examine new operating rules for the system. The researchers -- electrical engineering professor Robert Thomas, experimental economist William Schulze, resource economist Timothy Mount, senior electrical engineering investigator Ray Zimmerman and Schuler -- seek to strike a balance between ideal market mechanisms and traditional utility practices that will provide inexpensive energy for consumers, while maintaining system stability and reliability. [Joel Blumenthal] RESEARCHER LINKS INTERNET BEHAVIOR WITH LAWS OF PHYSICSThe Internet has a reputation as a wild and woolly electronic frontier where anything goes and no one plays by the rules, because there are no rules. Yet, underlying patterns of Internet use are driven by well-structured rules of social and physical interaction that can be modeled mathematically, and may even point the way to developing more user-friendly Web sites and search mechanisms, according to NSF-funded researcher Bernardo A. Huberman, a consulting professor of physics at Stanford University and a Research Fellow at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center. Huberman’s research indicates that while moving through a Web site with a mouse seems random, the behavior actually can be plotted and predicted, conforming to laws of physics that were derived in the 1920’s on apparent random movements of sub-atomic particles. Huberman discussed many of his findings in a recent presentation given at NSF headquarters in Arlington, Va. "I believe the Internet provides us with a phenomenal opportunity to study how people forage for information and interact with one another," he said. "And once you have derived these laws, you can turn them around and start designing Web pages and search engines. You can start answering the question 'Are there ways to induce behavior so that people will stay within a site?'" [Peter West] VIRTUAL PREY FOR REAL PREDATORS YIELDS NEW UNDERSTANDING OF NATURAL SELECTIONBlue jays and touch-sensitive computer monitors have given scientists insight into how predators decide their next meal -and how those choices affect genetic variation in prey. NSF-supported researchers Alan Bond and Alan Kamil from the University of Nebraska have studied the phenomena of apostatic selection, in which predators ignore rare varieties of a particular prey species in favor of more abundant varieties. Although apostatic selection has been predicted in theory, it has been notoriously difficult to demonstrate in reality. In order to design their innovative experiments, Bond and Kamil drew ideas from such disparate fields as behavioral ecology, operant learning, artificial intelligence and evolution. During the experiment, the scientists showed digital images of moths to real blue jays, which were then awarded with mealworms when they pecked at any of the moths on the screen. The pecked moths were considered "eaten" and removed from the population of digital moths. The next day, the population was regenerated to its initial size, but retained the relative numbers of the surviving prey from the day before. In these experiments, as in nature, predation by the jays affected the prey population over time. Not only did the simulations show that apostatic selection works to balance different varieties in a prey species, but it could also give an advantage to newly emerging varieties of the prey. [Greg Lester]
|
||||
 |
|
 |
|
|
 |